Researchers Have Built a System That Lets App Users Set Their Own Custom Permissions

One of the major problems with app permissions is that it's a completely binary system, you either accept the permissions or you don't download the app. This causes a lot of people to blindly accept permissions requests, so of course it wouldn't be surprising if the developers took advantage and and went a bit overboard *cough*Facebook Messenger*cough*. Now, Researchers at North Carolina University have created a third option.

This option has been called NativeWrap, and it allows web pages to be wrapped in code and appear almost exactly the same as a standard mobile app, with the only difference being that it has user-controlled privacy features.

William Eneck, assistant professor of computer science, has said that a lot of apps are just web pages with a custom user interface, so NativeWrap should give users a similar app-browsing experience in a large number of cases. A side-effect of this is that you can also use NativeWrap to turn any webpage into your own custom app that is then installed on your phone. So a little bit like a high-tech bookmark.

This doesn't appear to be publicly available just yet, but it would be nice to be able to freely use apps without worrying that you're being spied on. [Wired UK]